


The Seeds of All Things

by Alpined



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Gen, Protective Two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7565107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alpined/pseuds/Alpined
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five deals with the aftermath of her actions at the Galactic Detention Facility. Two helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seeds of All Things

Five took in a deep breath, eyeing the bag that hung in the middle of the training room. She was wearing a tanktop Two had lent her, which she had borrowed after she realized that none of her colorful wardrobe was really designed for working out, or for fighting.  
  
She settled into the fighting stance Four had shown her, fists raised. Five punched the bag. It moved, slightly, which was more than she could have said a few weeks ago. She punched it again, feeling the cloth webbing leave a slight imprint on her knuckles. Then she kicked the bag, snapping her foot out the way Four had taught her. That was a little more satisfying - the bag recoiled and swung backwards, before spinning back to its original position. Five rolled her shoulders and began punching it in earnest. Four spent practically all his free time training - she would never be good if she didn’t practice more.  
  
Somewhere along the sixth punch, she saw his face.  
  
_Punch_. He had looked more like an accountant than a GA agent - his uniform was perfectly creased, and he didn’t have a hair out of place. _Punch_. He hadn’t changed his expression when Five had had a gun trained on her. Were his eyes green? _Punch punch_. No, there’s no way she could have noticed a detail like that. _Punch_. But he had looked a little like One, in the right light. One, who was also dead. _Punch kick_. He had looked so surprised, when his chest was ripped open by the Android’s gun, the impact so sudden there was barely any blood. _Punch punch punch_. He collapsed, mouth slightly open in shock, limbs instantly limp. The three others were crumpled like rag dolls beside him, dead dead dead dead. _Punch punch punch punch punch_.  
  
Five was pounding the bag now, any semblance of skill gone as she swung at the bag wildly, feeling the cloth bite into her skin. There was a buzzing in her ears, the world narrowing down to her fists, the bag, and his face.  
  
“Five. Five!”  
  
A hand grabbed her shoulder and Five spun around, her right fist raised (bloody, she realized in the back of her mind). She felt completely untethered, and she almost swung at the person touching her. But then her mind registered that it was only Two holding onto her shoulder, looking at her as if she’d never seen her before.  
  
“Two,” Five gasped, lowering her arm. She realized she was breathing in and out with great heaving breaths, her heart racing. “I’m - sorry. I didn’t…” She stopped, not knowing how she meant to end that sentence.  
  
“It’s okay,” Two said soothingly, as if she was trying to calm a feral animal. Slowly, she reached out with her other arm so she held Five firmly by each shoulder. “It’s just me. Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Five said, finding it was hard to meet Two’s eyes. “I just...I got a little carried away.”  
  
“I’ll say,” Two said, giving Five a small smile than Five couldn’t quite return. “You’re supposed to stop once your knuckles start bleeding,” she said gently, nodding towards Five’s hands. Five looked down at her fists. Only when she fully registered the blood dripping off her hands did she notice the pain. She winced and curled her arms into herself, the pain suddenly hitting her in a rush.  
  
“C’mon,” Two said, her hand slipping onto Five’s back in a way that was comforting, but also applied enough pressure to get her moving. “Let’s get you patched up.”  
  
********  
  
Two watched Five carefully as they walked through the hallway, but it was hard to read her when the girl kept her face resolutely directed at the floor beneath them. Two resisted the urge to hug Five to her, knowing it was out of character for her and might just freak the girl out more. It had been a shock to walk in on Five beating on the punching bag, her fists leaving bright red smears on the cloth. When Five had first turned to her, Two hadn’t even recognized her - her eyes were wild and faraway, her teeth gritted like an animal’s. It scared Two, though she hadn’t let her fear show in her face. Not much scared Two.  
  
When they reached the sick bay, Five wordlessly took a seat next to the med-bed, her eyes still downcast, her hands held limply between her legs. Two went to the cupboard and pulled out a med-kit before walking back to Five. She reached down and lifted Five’s right hand, gently applying sterilizing solution to the raw knuckles. Five winced when the stinging solution touched her skin, but didn’t say anything. Two worked in silence, no sound but the hum of the ship in the background. As she was applying bandages to Five’s hands, she finally broke the quiet.  
  
“So, you want to tell me what’s going on?”  
  
Five finally looked up at her, and the look was so full of confused sadness that Two had to take a deep breath to steady herself.  Five gave a one-shouldered shrug, before looking back down at her lap.  
  
“I keep seeing their faces,” she said softly.  
  
“Whose faces?” Two asked, puzzled.  
  
“The faces of the people the Android killed. The people _I_ killed.”  
  
“Oh,” Two said, beginning to understand. “The Android told me about that. But you know her – she wasn’t heavy on the details.”  
  
Five let out a small, humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, it all happened pretty fast. I didn’t know what else to do. I told her to…I told her to kill them all. And she did. She shot them all.”  
  
Two reached over and let her fingers rest under Five’s chin, gently lifting so Five would meet her eyes. “Hey, Five, you did what you needed to do to survive. They would have killed you, and the Android, if you hadn’t done what you did.”  
  
“I know,” Five whispered. There was a tear trapped at the corner of her eye, and when she blinked it slid its way down her cheek. “So why do I see their faces all the time? I see them when I’m fixing parts for the ship, and when I’m reading, and when I’m trying to go to sleep. I don’t even remember what two of the guards looked like, but my brain just keeps filling in details about them. I know Shaddick was dangerous, but the two guards – maybe this was just a job for them. Maybe they had families.”  
  
“Maybe,” Two said, giving a small nod. “But you have a family too. You have a family on this ship that needs you, and that wanted you to come back safe to them. And the people on that station weren’t going to let us get out of there alive. It was us or them.”  
  
At those words, Five pulled herself away from Two’s hand. “It’s _that_ ,” she said, a hardness entering her eyes when she looked at Two. “I don’t want that to be how I live now. I’m so tired of…of having to choose to hurt people. I don’t want that to be who I am. I don’t want to be like --.”  She broke off, looking suddenly guilty.  
  
“Like us?” Two said, finishing her sentence gently. “Five, you’ll never be like us. And for that I am extremely grateful.”  
  
“Are you sure?” Five said, her voice still holding an edge. “A year ago, would I have been able to kill people?”  
  
Two shook her head. “You can’t think like that. This is the world we live in, and we have to make hard decisions sometimes. You’ve saved us all a dozen times. If you hadn’t done what you did on the station, you’d be dead, and the rest of us probably would be too. You only do what you have to do – it’s not like you take pleasure in it.”  
  
“But I did, once,” Five said. She looked back down at her lap when she said that, as if she couldn’t meet Two’s eyes.  
  
“When?” Two asked.  
  
“When I killed Cain.”  
  
“Ah,” Two said. She didn’t say anything after that, waiting for Five to continue on her own time.  
  
“Did…did One tell you about what happened? When they took me away from the others?”  
  
“No,” Two said, feeling a sudden fear rise up in her. “We didn’t really have time to talk about it considering all the things that happened after I…came back.”  
  
Five nodded. Two could see her face scrunching up as she tried to pick her words. “Wexler needed information from One, but he knew he couldn’t hurt any of you because you were…valuable. But I wasn’t, I guess – he called me _expendable_. So he told One that if he didn’t tell him what he wanted to know, he would hurt me. He had these pliers. He said he was going to…to my fingers.” Five paused, her hands curling into fists. Two reached over and touched Five’s hand, gently slipping it into hers when she let her fist loosen. She was careful not to squeeze, knowing Five’s knuckles were still raw.  
  
Five let out a deep breath before continuing. “And then, he and Cain said that instead they were going to…you know. To me.”  
  
Two closed her eyes, feeling her jaw clench. Five might be disturbed by her violent thoughts, but Two had no such compunction. All she wanted to do was go back in time and rip Cain’s throat out herself, and make sure Wexler’s death was far slower, and far more painful than it had been.  
  
Two opened her eyes to see Five dash some tears from her face, and a small tremor went through her body. She shrugged. “But nothing happened, because you came back. And I did everything I could to survive after that. And when Cain was attacking you, and I shot him…I was glad. I wanted to. I wanted to do it again.”  
  
“If I had known what he’d done, I would have done far worse,” Two said, and she could feel the menace in her voice. Five looked a little taken aback, so Two softened her expression. “Sorry. I know these things bother you, which is good. But I’m still the hardened-criminal type, and the thought of those bastards hurting you makes me want to do really, really violent things.”  
  
“I’m not really sure how to feel about that,” Five said, frowning.  
  
“That’s okay, kid,” Two said, laughing. “You just let me have my moment. But we were talking about your thoughts, not mine.” She shook her head. “I’m not a psychologist. I’m probably about as good as Three at analyzing emotions. But I do know you. I know you’re a good person, thrown in a bad situation – over and over, apparently. And I know that wanting to hurt the son of a bitch who hurt you does not erase that. It just means you’re human. If you didn’t react that way – well, you might as well be the Android.”  
  
“The Android has feelings,” Five protested.  
  
“Okay, not the point,” Two said, lifting an eyebrow. “Tell me: if those crew from the station were alive and in front of you right now, helpless, would you want to kill them?”  
  
“No,” Five said, shaking her head.  
  
“And when you think about tomorrow, are you looking forward to the next time you can hurt someone?”  
  
“No!” Five said, sounding appalled.  
  
Two nodded. “Okay then. You’re still you. You’ve just had to make some hard choices. And I wish so badly that you didn’t – I still wish you’d let us take you somewhere safe, where you don’t have to be faced with these situations.”  
  
“Nowhere is safe,” Five said, her voice hard. “I saw my memories in the past, before I was on the crew. All my friends were killed, and there was nothing I could do to protect them. But on this ship, I’m with all these…these badasses –“ Two laughed, and Five smiled slightly as she continued, “—who could kick anyone’s butt. And I’m learning to fight, finally, so I can protect myself. I’m better off here. I just…I miss One. And I wish I hadn’t had to kill those people. I don’t want to do that again.”  
  
“I know,” Two said softly. “And I hope you won’t. I won’t tell you to forget about the people you killed, because I know you can’t, and maybe you shouldn’t want to. But I can tell you that without you, we wouldn’t be here. They put your back against a wall, and you fought your way out. That’s what we do, on the Raza.”  
  
Five nodded. “I know. But…I don’t think they’re going to go away, the faces. No matter how much I think I did what I had to. What do I do about that?”  
  
Two looked at Five, her face too young for the questions she was asking and the positions she’d been put in. She was looking to Two for answers. Two, who wasn’t even human. Two, who didn’t think twice about killing when she had to. _Sorry I’m what you got stuck with for a role model_ , Two thought to herself wryly. She felt a deep, painful ache as she realized that One would know what to say. But One was gone, and they had to move on, like they always did.  
  
Two took an extra step to close the space between them, and wrapped Five into a hug. Five clung to her tightly, her face buried in Two's shoulders and her hands held gingerly where they met at Two’s back.  
  
“Time,” Two said softly, answering Five’s question. “You just have to give it time.”  
  
But she knew, with the storm coming their way, that time might be one thing they didn’t have.


End file.
